When Lightning Strikes..[2]

Annie was pulled back to reality by another sharp lightening that had struck the glass window pane with a throttling sound. She then realized that whatever that had happened was not a dream. It was real...painfully real. She tried to remember exactly the dreadful events that had happened in the previous day with a hardening heart.
It was a normal sunday morning and as usual she was getting ready in her room to go to the church. The delicious smell of hot chicken soup coming from the kitchen side brought a smile on her face. It was clearly her dear old granny in the kitchen preparing her special recipe. Even after so many trials and keen observing investigation, she was not been able to find the secret ingredient that gave her granny's chicken soup, the most erotic smell and flavour in the whole world. According to her, her granny was the BEST cook in the world because she makes her favourite chicken soup! When asked about the secret, her granny had once told her that she gave a small portion of her heart to the food while making it...this was her secret ingredient! Her mother was not keen at making non-vegetarian food because she was a vegetarian by birth and all her life. Her mother and father was of different religion and still, after 25 years of content married life, they follow their own beliefs without a single grudge or complain from each other's side. She had always wondered how was it possible for her parents to adjust so well with each other's beliefs and blend them wonderfully with such ease and purity in their lifes and particularly to HER life. Annie was used to follow the two beliefs simultaneously without any effort since her childhood. In her prayer room, she had Jesus and Krishna side by side. The pictures of Mother Mary and Saraswathy were hung on the same wall. She read bible with her granny's helping hand and she was byheart with almost all the mantras that her mother used to say every evening. Thus until high school she was'nt aware of the fact that she was following two different faiths in her life. And when she knew about it, she was proud that she managed to do something which seemed impossible and unbelievable to most of her friends in school. She felt she was special in her own way and her faith in God strengthened even more. She used to boast to her friends that she had two Gods as her guardian and thus she gets the combined blessings of the two.
Annie had always enjoyed the down pours that frequently occurred in her hometown. It was during those times that she used to sit by her window side and enjoy the chicken soup and watch the rains. It was heaven. She had the most beautiful family and she was living in a place that resembled a second heaven to most of the tourists who visited there, with blue mountains, waterfalls, green meadows, and lots of coffee plantations.
Now Annie was not even sure whether she could ever see her place and her family, all because of that fateful accident that occurred the previous day - sunday. Annie straight away went to the kitchen after dressing up. She was wearing a white skirt which had shiny little white beads and a matching white blouse with a white scarf that had a silver lining to it. Her granny had always liked to see her in any dress that was white. She said that it was because her sweet little Annie resembles an angel from heaven and her papa used to tease her by calling her the 'local Cinderella' whenever she wore a white dress.
Annie was very much into eating the chicken soup from the moment she got the smell of it. But it was her mother's strict rule to eat only after the morning prayer at the church. Even though it was very early for breakfast, the alluring smell of the chicken soup made her feel very hungry. She kissed her granny hard on her cheeks and hugged her mother tightly inspite of her protests. Her papa was already in the garage doing his favourite pastime-repairing their old car with grease on his face and hands. She quickly said a bye to him and started to hurry up to the church with the hot chicken soup in her mind. She had barely reached the church gate when a loud thundering noise startled all of them. She thought it to be an unusual indication of a heavy down pour since the weather had been cloudy and dark for the past 2 days. But the next earsplitting noise completely changed her perception. The earth underneath her was moving. She could hear the cries of people down the church lane. Was it an earth quake? Should she run? But where? What about her parents and granny? So many thoughts occurred in her mind, but before she could think of anything else, she was pushed along with the crowds. The local militants and police-men were storming everywhere rescuing fallen people and moving them to the various buses and vans that were filled with panick-struck and totally confused people. The filled buses were rushed out of the place and soon Annie found herself sitting in one of the crowded buses that was now speeding its way to some unknown place. Annie was suddenly blacked out. When she regained her consciousness, she found herself in a tent which was filled with people who were injured and covered with blood. She slowly stood up found the way out of the tent. When she was outside, there she saw hundreds of similar black tents with people, policemen and armed people moving around. The place was filled with lot of commotion. Annie slowly started walking towards the nearby tentsand peeped into one by one, desperately wanting to find her parents and granny. After searching inside the last black tent, she was totally exhausted. There was no sign of her parents or granny. She was all alone there in an unknown place with full of strangers around. She could'nt recognise a single face that was moving around her. It seemed that an enormous disaster had struck the entire place of her hometown and the nearby places as well. She felt very weak to move and even to stand erect. But before she could turn, someone caught her hand and again she was dragged inside another bus and the bus started to move. After it seemed to be many hours and many stations, the bus stopped in front of an old railway station. She was automatically directed inside a compartment and was given a side seat. She didnt even realise the language of some of the passengers in the nearby seats. She wondered which place of the country she was in then. As her eyes were wandering in and around the station to find a familiar face, the train had started to move and then she saw someone running after their boggie to catch the train. The train was gaining its speed and the man was still running. Atlast he got a grip onto the metal rod and he got into the train. For a split of a second she gave a content sigh.
He stood near the door side with lot of sweat in his face and dirt in his dress. He was Ajay. He had been sent to this place by the company he works for a week's campaign. He was a design executive in the mechanical section of his high profile company. He didnt expect he would be coming back to his place bearing such a state of mind. Instead, when he was given this assignment, he had secretly planned a week long vacation in this exotic place after his long work schedules that seemed to have taken his soul away from him and made him a complete mechanical man or simply a talking machine.
[.......TBC.......]